


Topside

by Cenodoxus



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft - Various Authors
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brother-Sister Relationships, Depression, F/F, F/M, Magic, Prison, Protective Siblings, Self-Hatred, Sibling Bonding, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2019-11-12 09:26:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18008288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cenodoxus/pseuds/Cenodoxus
Summary: Whatever remains of her in this pit – drugged, filthy, cold, scrambling like an animal when food comes – it has difficulty accepting that any of her happy memories are real, or deserves them if they are.She knows the ones she does deserve.Jaina's imprisonment in Kul Tiras.





	1. The Pit

**Author's Note:**

> The game only touches briefly on what happens to Jaina between her arrest and your finding her in Thros, and doesn't address how much time elapses between the two events. Given the length of the Alliance campaign, it could have been weeks to months. The shipping contract you find on the Pride of Kul Tiras questline also states that Jaina is to be kept “contained” while in transit to Fate's End, and there are only so many ways you can do that with a mage of Jaina's abilities.
> 
> This chapter isn't very shippy, but acknowledges Jaina/Arthas, Jaina/Kalecgos, and if you squint, one or two more.

“Do you what you will. She means nothing to me.”

She wonders what else she could possibly have expected.

 

* * *

 

Jaina's not sure where they take her.

The day is a blur of guards and rough hands, and she's numb to everything but the thought of her mother. The Alliance emissary is taken into custody at the same time, but they're not kept together. The guards' uniforms change from Proudmoore to Ashvane livery. Then shackles, and a boat, a frightened tidesage who keeps glancing back at her, and the hands again. One lingers on the side of her chest too long to be entirely innocent, but she doesn't look up. In the end, a stone prison rears above a rocky beach. It's only after she's inside that a dull thought surfaces; she should have looked around more. She may never see the outdoors again.

The walk is long and she has ample time to absorb details on the way: Sputtering lights, the stink of burnt oatmeal, and indescribable filth everywhere. The other prisoners crowd the bars and are quiet as she approaches. Most of them are in rags and their eyes are sunken. One of the guards, the one who grabbed her staff so hard earlier that she nearly toppled, turns and smashes a truncheon against the bars. The prisoners scatter and he laughs.

Progress with the shackles on is torture. She's damp from the trip and the metal chafes against wet skin and cloth. By the time they finally reach the cell, she's raw. When the warden unlocks the cuffs and yanks them off, the edges rasp her wrists and she bleeds. She looks at the bright red, almost insensible to the pain, and barely registers the door slamming behind her.

The pit – as she comes to know it – is a tiny, recessed room with no bed or platform. The flagstones are uneven, and there's a hole in the corner for the relief of the prisoner's needs. The only light is from a barred vent at the top of the wall opposite the door, and from the angle, she thinks she's on the northwestern side of the prison. The door itself is steel and has no window, just a slot at the bottom for food to be pushed through. There's a rumpled, shapeless mass on the floor, and she picks it up; a thin blanket, the pit's one concession to comfort.

There are a few official prisons in Kul Tiras, but this place isn't among them, or shouldn't be. Her mother has been running the island for more than a decade, and if this rathole is operating with Katherine Proudmoore's sanction, then the whole mission was a fool's errand, and she truly doesn't know her mother anymore.

 

* * *

 

No one comes the first day. She can't hear much outside the pit, but near as she can tell, the guards seem to round every few hours. They stop outside the door for a moment and move on.

The flagstones are uncomfortable to sleep on, but she finds a spot near the door where she can curl on her side and not have too many sharp edges digging into her.

She finally gets desperate enough to use the hole in the corner, but waits until after the next guard rounds because she's afraid someone might hear. She'd find the vanity amusing if it weren't so pathetic. Jaina smooths down her skirts afterwards, wondering if she even needs to worry about looking presentable for a visitor.

At first she can't think of anything but her mother. Inevitably, hunger and thirst begin to intrude, and she briefly considers conjuring a meal but doesn't. Isn't that the point of being punished?

 

* * *

 

On the second day, the slot in the door opens and a metal tray is pushed through. From the light in the vent, she thinks it's midday or early afternoon, so this must be lunch. The tray holds a tin cup of lukewarm tea and two pieces of bread.

She was so sick with anxiety on the way to Kul Tiras that she couldn't keep anything down, so she's already ravenous. The first bite of bread is so dry it sticks in her throat, and she gulps the tea. It's faintly bitter and hardly strong enough to merit being called tea, but it does the job and she's able to finish eating. When she's done, she replaces the cup on the tray, and then timidly pushes it back through the slot.

She doesn't remember the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

From that point on, the slot opens for the morning and evening meals; food never reappears at lunchtime, though she's given more tea. There are always two slices of bread, and occasionally she gets a portion of a tasteless stew or a piece of salted fish with boiled potatoes. She's never full, and it's not enough to keep her from starving longterm, but it's enough that she'll last for a bit if she conserves energy. There aren't any utensils, so the stew is a bit messy.

On colder days, she warms the little cup with a small flame in her palm, which is the only bit of magic she permits herself. She can't understand why cold tea, of all things, is where she draws the line. She could conjure her own food and drink. She could create a pocket dimension in the pit and have acres of yawning space around her. She could teleport furniture and books and quilts from her old apartment in Dalaran. She could teleport herself out any time she chooses – she can sense the wards around the prison, and staff or no staff, she doesn't think they'll be strong enough to keep her -- but the moment she does, all hope of Kul Tiras rejoining the Alliance fades, and everything she promised Anduin is a lie.

The captive most able to escape the prison is the one most securely trapped within it. She thinks Antonidas would have appreciated the irony. Pained would have understood her sense of duty. Aegwynn would have been out in five seconds and blown the place to bits for good measure.

 

* * *

 

It was late summer when she arrived on the island, and the season is advancing. She has some resistance to the cold after decades training with frost magic, but that's being tested at night. She wraps herself in her cloak and blanket, and together they're almost enough. She's not sure how the other prisoners manage, and worries.

 

* * *

 

Her brain is twisting itself in knots trying to find something to do, and one day she opens the slot after a guard has left the cell during rounds. She sees leather boots turning the corridor and not stopping.

She hunts around the cell until she finds a small piece of rock that's chipped off one of the flagstones, and carefully taps it into the hinge to keep it slightly open. Later that day, she can hear another guard approaching, and he doesn't stop at any point. Nothing else in the corridor is audible, and a moment later, the slot opens fully and supper appears. Footsteps recede in the background.

She chews her mackerel and bread that night, mind moving over it slowly. There is no other prisoner in this wing.

 

* * *

 

The next time a guard comes, she musters the courage to ask if her mother and brother are all right, but he doesn't answer. Neither does the next guard, or the next, or the next. She memorizes their boots and footfalls, and thinks there are at least four who've been assigned to her, so she stops asking once the first one returns.

 

* * *

 

For lack of anything else to do, Jaina goes over her lessons, replays old conversations, nice meals, and old stories, and just thinks. Her mind is gentle with her at first and clicks along busily on the subject of runes and grouse with bread sauce, but she knows it won't last.

She spends time probing the prison wards. They're not difficult to sense – it's akin to closing her eyes and pulling on a tablecloth, trying to guess the location of the plates – but she doesn't want to be too obvious about it. If there are wards, that means there's a mage, and a mage means someone who can figure out what she's doing. She contents herself with a cursory look, nothing that couldn't be explained by atmospheric mana. The ward closest to her seems to be the least well-maintained, so maybe that portion of the island isn't very accessible.

The southernmost ward intrigues her. It's the one closest to the boat dock and whatever it's doing is unique. It feels like a mixture of tidesage spells and what Kael'thas used to refer to disparagingly as “bureaucrat magic” – the stuff that kept Dalaran's offices and file systems in order without any especial effort.

If she had to guess, she thinks it's the creation of a mage who found a way to announce and register visitors and prisoners as they arrived without having to do the bookkeeping themselves. It is equal-parts clever and lazy (“Well, sometimes they're one and the same,” said Antonidas, as one of his quills scribbled equations behind him), and she admires it.

 

* * *

 

Keeping track of the days is getting harder. She has a vague sense of time from how the light changes in the vent, but sometimes her mind is fuzzy, unreliable. It's happening more and more.

She's not sure whether to be worried that's she's losing the only thing that made her worth anything, or relieved. The hours are longer than she ever thought possible, and she sleeps as much as she can. She's just so tired.

What she can't figure out is why there's no window into the pit from the corridor. It doesn't make sense for the guards to have no means of monitoring her outside of collecting meal trays. Ordinarily she'd think magic, but she's spent hours running her hands over every last inch of the cell she can reach, even overcoming her nausea to examine the hole in the corner, and there doesn't seem to be anything there.

 

* * *

 

Water collects in the lower portions of the cell when it rains. She can stay dry in certain spots, but discovers that her usual sleeping area is one of the puddles. She sleeps propped against one of the corners instead.

 

* * *

 

 

After the pit dries up, there's another day or so where the tray doesn't appear. She's on the verge of breaking down and summoning her own meal when the slot finally opens. She's so thirsty she grabs for the cup and gulps, but there's something in the texture that's a faint warning. The tea doesn't taste any different, but she lets it move over her tongue for a moment, and then she knows. It's subtle, but it's there; a slipperiness, an edge to the aftertaste. They've let her go without food or water to make sure she'd drink it.

She holds the cup to the light, tries to see anything in it, anything swirling around the bottom that would confirm it, but both it and the cell are too dark.

So. The tea is drugged.

She drinks it anyway.

 

* * *

 

In the aggregate, Jaina thinks they've probably been drugging her since the beginning, but the dose is inconsistent. She's not sure if it's different people giving it to her, an inexperienced alchemist, or just experimentation on their part.

Once she knows it's happening, her brain starts to observe itself clinically. Sometimes the tea isn't enough to put her under, but enough that she has trouble staying upright. She pushes her back to the wall of the cell but still lists, never quite able to right herself. Sometimes it's so much that she has no memory at all and wakes later, mind scrabbling for purchase, slipping like boots on an icy dock. When it's somewhere between the two, she just curls up and goes to sleep, and most of the time doesn't dream.

Those are her favorite days.

 

* * *

 

She still talks to the guards. Never anything extended, just a “Thank you” when they slide the food through, but they don't respond. Today is different. When breakfast – bread and cold oatmeal -- is pushed into the cell, she murmurs a thanks and whoever's at the door pauses. She looks. The leather on the boots is newer and they're not as large as the others she's seen, and she thinks – a woman?

No. A voice, higher than she expects but unmistakably male, answers: “Welcome, marm.” He steps off. She lies on her belly, peering through the slot, and is just able to catch a glimpse of his legs turning the corner. The boots are slightly too big for him and his legs are skinny. She doubts he's much older than eighteen, and then she thinks of Anduin, and wishes she'd never said anything at all.

 

* * *

 

It rains again.

Jaina considers breaking her self-imposed rule against magic for some hygiene spells. She's filthy after however long she's been there, but somehow it feels wrong to enjoy a privilege she's sure no other prisoner has. For that matter, who's going to see?

 

* * *

 

The evening bells have rung. She's in her tower at Theramore watching people go home, and leans over to get a better look at a couple. She knows them slightly, a soldier and a farrier, married not two weeks. There was no honeymoon – it would have been considered self-indulgent for anyone to take time off with such astronomical labor needs in the young city – but people are still giving them little gifts. She had sent them a case of wine and a pot of flowers, and today the farrier is swinging a partridge. They'll have a nice supper together.

She turns away and Aegwynn is at the desk, regarding her over a stack of import forms (the old woman's least-favorite task, and one from which she sought any form of distraction).

“What?”

“Jealous, are we?” Aegwynn is smiling, but there's something sly in it. Pained is in the next room fletching arrows, but Jaina sees her ears flick, and knows she's listening.

“Of course not.”

“Lying doesn't suit you, Miss Proudmoore.”

“I'm not jealous. It makes me a little sad, because I'd like to meet someone nice, but that doesn't mean they've done anything wrong.”

“That's the definition of jealousy.”

“Technically it's the definition of _envy_.”

Aegwynn's ink bottle is down to the dregs and she's getting visibly annoyed. “I can't begin to imagine why you haven't found anyone yet.”

She always gets like this when it's been a long day and there's paperwork at the end; Jaina should probably just start doing the import forms herself. Or, better yet, find out how Dalaran automated it. Anyway, it's a mood she doesn't want to feed, but it's been a long day for her too, so she does.

“You need to stop projecting your issues onto me.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means. Just because your own love life didn't work out is no reason to get mean about someone else's.”

Aegwynn leans back; Jaina recognizes the danger signal. “I wasn't aware there was anything to get mean about.” Oh, it was a mistake to admit she hadn't been with anyone since Arthas.

“I have a few other things on my plate at the moment, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“It won't matter. Let me tell you something I wish someone had told me. When men say they want a smart girlfriend, or they want a smart wife, there's an unspoken qualifier at the end.”

“Which is?”

“It's _I want a smart girlfriend_ , but then there's the part they never say out loud: _As long as she's not smarter than me_. Nielas and I never would have lasted for that reason, and I haven't seen anything about this particular century to suggest that anything's changed. Didn't you ever wonder why so many women in the Kirin Tor are single?”

“Not everyone's like that, Aegwynn, and if I find the right man – ”

“Or woman.” Pained's voice floats in from the other room. (She never misses a chance to needle Aegwynn.)

“ – Or woman,” she agrees, “I don't think that'll be an issue.”

Aegwynn turns away dismissively. “You're a mage, and one of the better ones. You're a brain and a hand. The sooner you accept it, the happier you'll be.”

 

* * *

 

She really hates it when they don't drug her enough to stop the dreams.

 

* * *

 

Not-Anduin continues to deliver her meals occasionally. Whenever it's him, there's a little extra on the tray – a dried apple slice, an extra morsel of fish, once even a molasses cookie. She wonders if he knows what's in the tea.

 

* * *

 

Reddish light comes in through the vent in the evening. She stands on tiptoe at the extreme edge of the pit to get a glimpse of the sky. It's the fabled red sunset, the sailor's glory. She hopes Tandred is enjoying the weather.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes the air in the pit is different when she's emerging from that odd twilight state. She thinks the door of the cell is open, but then she wakes and it isn't.

 

* * *

 

The drugging is getting more effective, but Jaina's not sure it's the dose so much as her that's changed. Her clothes hang off her, and when she hugs herself at night to stay warm, she can feel her ribs too easily. She tests herself, senses the weakness, and knows she's losing ground. If she had to escape, or do anything that required a lot of energy and mana, she'd have to do it soon. There's a point beyond which she just won't have the physical reserves for it, and she knows it's approaching.

The clinical part of her keeps trundling along. She lies on her side watching particles suspended in the beam of light through the vent, and thinks about an article by a gnomish academic on caloric intake in magic users. Her research had concluded that a mage in normal practice required 15-20% more calories than a non-magic user of the same height, sex, and build. “Interestingly,” she wrote, “even a mage not in active practice will still have greater passive caloric need.” The data on this point was less conclusive, but she'd estimated that even retired mages would need 5-8% more calories to maintain their weight, but no one was sure why. Jaina shifts, wincing as the floor digs into her, and wonders if this is unique to the arcane, or it's any school of magic that does it.

The less-clinical part of her remembers what she saw in Lordaeron's refugee camps, but she's spared any further thought on that point when the tea kicks in.

 

* * *

 

Jaina's sitting on a stool in the bathroom as her mother plaits a Princess Anne for her. They have to go to something official tonight, maybe a dinner, she doesn't remember. Her father pokes his head in.

“I never would have expected this,” says Daelin, grinning. “Mad Kitty has hidden depths.”

“If you can tie knots, you can braid hair,” Katherine says tartly. She gathers Jaina's hair in one hand and uses the other to smack her husband lightly with a comb. “Are the boys ready?”

“Yes, but it's not going to last. We need to get there as soon as possible so we can fool people into thinking we're responsible parents before one of them falls in a cowpat or something.” There's a loud crash elsewhere in the keep. “Oh, hell, it might already be too late for that.” Her father disappears down the hall.

Katherine finishes tying a ribbon and turns her around. “I hope that was just Derek jumping down the stairs again. Let's have a look, then. Very pretty.”

Jaina's squirming in her dress. “It's itchy.”

“Here, stand up.” Katherine gently lifts her chin. “Around the neck? I expect the lining may have come loose. Hold still.”

She submits happily to her mother's attentions. “Mummy, why does Dad call you Mad Kitty?”

Her mother laughs. “We can talk about that much, _much_ later. And yes, it's the lining.” She rummages through the drawers until she finds a safety pin. “No time for a real fix, but you won't get all scratched up. There'll be a lot of people here tonight, so don't forget your manners.”

“I'll be good.”

“I know you will be. It's hard sometimes, Jaina, but people look to us to set an example.” She picks her daughter up and cuddles her, stepping outside the bathroom.

“I can walk.”

“I know.” Katherine tucks a stray piece of hair back into the braid. “But you're getting big and I won't be able to do this much longer.”

 

* * *

 

More rain. Her fingernails are black with dirt, and her hair is lank and greasy. The rest of her is probably just as bad, but she can't bring herself to look. She rebraids her hair and tucks it into her hood.

There's enough water in the pit that even the highest flagstones are damp. She wedges herself into a corner to try to stay dry even while drugged, but it doesn't always work.

 

* * *

 

The next time Not-Anduin comes, she takes a risk.

“I'm sorry to bother you.” Her own voice is alien to her now, but it doesn't matter; the young guard pauses outside the door. “Do you know if Tandred Proudmoore is all right? My brother?”

Silence. Then: “I'm not sure, marm. Um … he was with the fleet, was he?”

“I think so, yes.”

She can almost hear him fidgeting outside the door. “I thought someone would've told you.”

Her heart freezes. “No, no one's told me anything. Please.”

“The fleet went missing in … I donno when it was exactly, but no one's seen 'em in months.” He is quiet, miserable. “I'm sorry. There was talk of sending a search party out, but Lady Ashvane doesn't think it's a good idea. She says – ”

A voice, sharp and angry, in the corridor. He scurries off.

He's brought her a tiny peppermint candy with her breakfast. She sinks back against the wall and cries.

 

* * *

 

Supper doesn't come. In the morning, the food tray is kicked through the slot. The cup topples, soaking the bread – a half-portion, she notices – and the rest splashes onto the floor. She tries to salvage what she can, which isn't much. She eats the soggy bread anyway and then upends the tray, letting the cold tea run off of it and into her mouth.

She waits for the brain fog to descend, but it doesn't today. Consciousness is its own punishment.

 

* * *

 

Heel Patch, Big Boots, Frayed Laces, and Tar Stain have all come and gone multiple times. She watches diligently, but never sees the young guard again.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes she remembers the nice things: Her governess laughing at something funny she said, though she doesn't remember what it was. Kinndy somehow managing to teleport Jaina's prized astrolabe into the pig yard. Battling Tandred with toy ships in the fountain, and her father beaming whenever one of them made a clever move. The week after Kalec read a book on human courtship practices. Katherine taking a break from negotiations over caulking materials to praise Jaina's history essay. Running to keep up with Derek in a race and crying because she couldn't, and then he jogged back and put her on his shoulders. Pained telling them a story about what happened the night Tyrande sent her regiment a cask of plum brandy, elaborating on the details she knew would shock Aegwynn the most. The somber beauty of a rainstorm on Violet Rise, and Vereesa falling asleep on her shoulder as they waited for it to end. Docking late in Boralus after bad winds, missing a state dinner, and eating cold sandwiches in the kitchen with her family.

They all seem fainter now, as if they happened to someone else, and maybe they did. Whatever remains of her in this pit – drugged, filthy, cold, scrambling like an animal when food comes – it has difficulty accepting that any of these memories are real, or deserves them if they are.

She knows the ones she does deserve.

 

* * *

 

She teleports to all of the refugee camps in one last, desperate bid to find people willing to risk the trip across the sea. She's twenty-three and a foreigner and keenly aware that no one's following her because she's a compelling speaker or anyone's idea of a great leader, but she doesn't have to be either to give them a way out. Antonidas had warned her that all the reports coming in were bad, but none of them get close to the truth.

Most of the farms in Lordaeron had been destroyed by the advancing Scourge, and though Dalaran and Menethil sent food aid, there was never enough to go around. When she leaves the cluster of administrators' tents in the first camp, she stops in her tracks at the sight of the feeding lines. Lines? There are no lines, just swarms of thin, ragged people, some of them holding up bawling children and pleading to get to the front. An elderly man accidentally knocks into a woman who's just been given a bowl of soup, and most of it sloshes out. The woman's dumbstruck at first, and then screams and latches onto him like a badger, biting and clawing. She has to be pulled off by the guards. The man is sobbing on the ground while people around him pick through the mud, looking for any solid bits from the soup.

Jaina has trouble finding her voice at first. “I had no idea it was this bad.”

The camp director, a former distribution supervisor in Andorhal, looks at her as if she's insane. “These are the lucky ones. If they've got energy to beg or fight, they're fine. You have to worry about them when they go quiet. Trust me, these are the people who can make it across the ocean.”

The director's right. All the camps are bad, but conditions deteriorate in the east. At the last, she's honestly not sure what she'd do if the Scourge attacked, because the only difference between the reanimated dead outside the camp and the people within it is that the undead seem to have more energy. The only sign of any activity is a pack of soldiers trying to take something away from a young woman, and Jaina marches over, righteously angry, to stop them from stealing her food. But their efforts are half-hearted at best, and they part easily when she walks up. The woman is around her age and so weak she's barely able to stand, but she clutches a bundle of rags to her chest as if it's the most precious thing in the world. It is. It's a baby, neck lolling around, the sun catching dried tear tracks on its face. Dead.

She reflexively tries to stammer an apology, realizes the idiocy of it in the same second, can't finish the sentence, can't find or think of anything to say as the mad horror of it all crystallizes in one brief, powerless moment. There's nothing she can do. There's nothing in all the libraries of Dalaran, in all the armies of the world, in the power of any god that's ever walked the earth, in all the prayers and supplications of a thousand religions, that will ever make any of this better. The woman's eyes are blank and staring, and Jaina knows more absolutely than she's ever known anything in her life that she isn't going to make it and doesn't want to. For the first time she begins to understand, even if only in the barest sense, what her parents went through when Derek died.

She can't take it anymore. She makes it to a table and to keep herself from falling apart entirely, starts conjuring food as quickly as she can. It's like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon; she's been teleporting all day and can't possibly feed more than a single family before she's spent. A nearby priest tells her to stop.

“It's not that we don't appreciate the effort,” he says wearily, “but most of these people are too far gone. Do you see?” He points at a man who's little more than a skeleton wrapped in skin. “He can't swallow solid food anymore. Past a certain point, the body just starts eating itself when it doesn't have anything else. He'll throw any food back up. Trust me, I've tried.”

“Isn't there anything I can do?” she says desperately. “Please. I came to help, and I can't … there's nothing … “

The priest's expression hardens. “You're a mage, right? You see those bodies over there?” He jerks a finger toward a growing pile, with soldiers pushing wagons heaped with more corpses over. It's on the western side of the camp in a bid to keep it as far away from the Scourge as possible.

Bile rises in her throat, but she nods.

“Good. Burn them.”

Most are children. The soldiers tell her they die first.

 

* * *

 

More rain.

 

* * *

 

She's not sure how long she's under, but wakes to find the blanket gone. She pulls her cloak around her and wonders how she could have been so stupid. Of course they don't need a window into the cell.

 

* * *

 

A thin soup with barley, overcooked vegetables, and a few unidentifiable meat scraps enters the meal rotation. As with the tea, it's never hot by the time it reaches her, so she guesses this wing must be fairly distant from the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

They're wrapped in quilts at the top of the palace's highest tower not long after she's come for Noblegarden. One of the cooks has given them some bread and a wonderful runny cheese, and Arthas had poached a nice bottle of wine from the cellars. They're eating and looking at the stars.

She finishes her glass. “God, that's amazing. A little strong, though.”

“Well, yeah, but it's cold. Gotta keep your strength up.”

She laughs. “You're not supposed to drink when you're cold.”

“We're always cold, Jaina. It's a _northern climate_. Have you ever looked at a map?”

“You know what I mean!”

“Does Antonidas know you don't actually have any clue where Lordaeron is? Do you just teleport to a bunch of random places until you find something that looks familiar and then walk the rest of the way?”

“That's my big secret. When I go home on break, they have to fish me out of the harbor.”

“It's smart. You don't have to tell people you have no idea where you are, and let's be honest, you need the exercise anyway.” He easily dodges her attempt to swat him, and then refills both their glasses.

“I meant it, though – this is really nice.” She indicates the bottle. “It's so nice we probably shouldn't be having it. Are you sure your mom and dad are going to be okay with this?”

“Probably not, but I'm just gonna tell them you stole it. You'll be back in Dalaran so they won't be able to do anything about it.”

“Yeah, I definitely want your parents to think their houseguest is a drunk.”

“Most of our houseguests are drunks. The ones who aren't are usually the sanctimonious church people that even Uther can't stand. He said once --” Arthas starts laughing. “I was pissed off about something and he started lecturing me on the Light's infinite forgiveness and mercy, and I told him he'd spent the morning complaining about a priest who'd bored him mindless at dinner, so where was the infinite forgiveness for that? He said, 'Well, some people are just assholes,' and I said, 'Well, it's good to know we don't actually have to _mean_ anything we say about the Light,' and I got 25 laps around the courtyard for being a smartass. Then I got 25 more when I yelled at him on the last lap that apparently there wasn't going to be any infinite forgiveness for me either.”

They're both laughing too hard to talk for a little while, and the wind picks up. She uses the chill as an excuse to scoot into his arms and snuggle against his chest.

It's a clear night. The court astronomer, a high elf who'd mapped the heavens for centuries before either of them was born, had taught the young prince all the stars and planets. Arthas is touchingly eager to show off and tells her all the major constellations and the stories behind them. He's enjoying it so much she doesn't tell him that Kul Tirans are taught celestial navigation as children. Tandred's a lot better at it than she is (they all agree he's the family's most natural sailor), but she knows enough to coast through astronomy classes in Dalaran. Kael'thas had given her a sextant as a birthday gift, wishing her many happy years following what his people called “the endless dance.”

Arthas points to Leo rising in the eastern sky. “The elves call it _Hronanílde_ and always saw it as a lynx, but the humans thought it was a lion. Apparently there was a fistfight between astronomers in the early human kingdoms over who'd named it first. Everybody loves lions. I have some ancestor who changed Lordaeron's device to that spiky L thing because he said they couldn't all use lions and he'd be damned if he'd share a symbol with Stormwind. He left it as the crest though. I thought you should know the kind of pettiness you'll be dealing with here.”

“What does your teacher think?” she says, grinning.

“Well, you know the elves. If the humans are fighting over something, then as far as they're concerned, it's probably pointless bullshit. I mean, he's not wrong. About this, at least.” His hand trembles a little as he grasps hers, and they're callused with all the sword practice he's been putting in lately, but he traces the arc of the lion's neck with her so gently. “Adhafera at the base, then Algieba, Rasalas, and Algenubi. Whoever named them must have loved them a lot, because I always thought their names were beautiful.”

She squints. “I think Algieba's the one at the bottom of the neck.” She touches fingertips with him, shivering a little at the contact. God, she's pathetic. They haven't, not yet, but she hopes.

He visibly deflates. “Oh. You already know all this?”

“No,” she says quickly. “A lot of this I don't know. I mean, I know most of the stars you can use for getting around, but I didn't know any of that stuff about the history of the constellations.” He's motionless, and she touches fingertips again, feeling wretched. “I'd like to hear more.”

“Well … there's, um.” He sits up gamely. “The elves see that star cluster there as part of the lynx, but Master Dawnchaser said the Amani combine that and the one above and call it The Crow in the Tree. He said sometimes the trolls have more intuitive constellations than the elves, but it was like pulling teeth to get him to admit it.”

He makes an obvious effort, but it's not the same. They're out of bread anyway, and it's getting colder, so they pack up and head down, him to his bedroom and her to the guest wing. She goes to bed miserable and doesn't quite understand how she manages to ruin everything. At breakfast before she returns to Dalaran, Arthas is his normal cheerful self, and doesn't seem to have attached any particular importance to the episode, so she shoves it to the back of her mind.

 

* * *

 

When she thinks about him, she doesn't always think about the culling, or Terenas, or the cold end in the snow. She thinks about the little moments that went wrong in their relationship and how so many of them seem to be wrapped up in something she said or did, and whether that played a role in what happened. Maybe Arthas doesn't listen to her at Stratholme because he feels like she looks down on him, like she's just correcting him again, and it's all over things she never needed to say at all. She looked it up as soon as she got home, and Algieba _is_ the star at the base of the neck, but does anyone honestly care? Did thousands of people die because of how easily she screws up even the smallest interactions?

She digs her hand into a sharp bit on the flagstones, glorying savagely in the pain. Was it any different with her father? Or Thrall? The Kirin Tor?

A brain and a hand.

Was she ever the person she needed to be when it mattered?

 

* * *

 

The arcane ward closest to her still isn't being maintained.

 

* * *

 

Whenever she's not drugged into insensibility, she wonders why she hasn't been executed yet. With no news of the outside world, she's left to reason solely on the basis of what hasn't happened. Antonidas used to lecture her on not drawing conclusions from incomplete information, which he considered one of the worst intellectual sins. It was one of Jaina's most cherished and frequently-quoted principles, until Aegwynn got cross and told her there was no such thing as complete information, unless you had perfect foreknowledge of events and of course that didn't exist either, and did Antonidas ever consider that he might be setting her up to feel bad about every decision she would ever make? Sometimes Jaina wishes they'd met – preferably somewhere with lots of things to throw at each other, and a chair nearby for Pained so she could critique their lack of aim.

Anyway. Her mind ticks through the available information, scant as it is:

No one's come for her. The Alliance emissary is likely imprisoned or deported. She doesn't think they'd be executed; Kul Tiras won't risk open conflict with the Alliance, but then, taking a diplomat into custody was unheard of too. Genn and the 7th Legion would have been forced to leave as well.

Her mother hasn't intervened and clearly meant every word she said that day in front of the keep. That thought, more than any other, is reason enough to be grateful for the oblivion offered by the drugs.

Tandred is missing, probably dead. If so, Jaina is the last of the Proudmoore line. If she dies, the house will be extinct and control over Kul Tiras will pass … to whom? The line of succession isn't clear to her. Maybe there isn't one because no one expected it would be an issue with three healthy Proudmoore children. It would have to pass to another house, but there's no established hierarchy among Waycrest, Stormsong, and Ashvane. Is she still alive because her existence, hateful as it is, is a temporary stay against civil war? And where is the fleet?

The Kirin Tor won't get involved, and shouldn't. She would have made the same ruthless calculation if she were still heading the Council of Six. Dalaran's status as an independent state had always depended on maintaining distance from the squabbles of the other human kingdoms. Kalec won't intervene for the same reason, she thinks.

Something about Lady Ashvane's involvement doesn't sit right. Jaina has only vague memories of the Ashvanes from childhood, mostly from state occasions and when Priscilla came for tea with Katherine. She remembers a loud, boisterous woman who was rude to the servants when her mother was out of earshot. Her husband was a quiet man and she didn't see him much; he and Daelin were alike, always happiest on a ship. The Ashvanes controlled most of the island's trade concerns, but they'd never been seriously involved in its internal affairs. Something had changed. Where was Lord Ashvane in all this? Was he still alive? Why was Lady Ashvane in any position to take custody of a prisoner? She has no answers to any of these and has to shelve it, but it comes back like a bad penny.

Anduin. He can't come for her without violating Kul Tiran sovereignty. He'd be reluctant to do it anyway because he's, well, Anduin, but doing it now would spark a conflict he can ill afford. There's also no way to negotiate her release without effectively admitting that Daelin Proudmoore's death doesn't have the same significance for the Alliance as it does for Kul Tiras, which is a diplomatic nightmare. His best option may be what's already happening; leaving her to rot in prison or hang.

She can almost see it, the moment he arrives at the same conclusion. She knows the look; she saw it on Varian a thousand times, and Anduin looks so disturbingly like his father when there's an ugly decision to be made. It won't be possible to bring Kul Tiras back into the Alliance without resolving why they left in the first place, and doing so probably means stepping over her corpse to shake hands.

She wipes her eyes and thinks this may be the final and greatest gesture of love she can possibly give him – simply getting out of the way.

 

* * *

 

Warming the tea requires a level of concentration she hasn't had to give a pilot light in decades. She's getting weaker.

 

* * *

 

Her parents had abolished execution in Kul Tiras for all but the worst offenses, and even then refused to make them public. There had been some grousing about tradition and deterrence, but the Proudmoores stood firm. Derek had asked about it at dinner one night after he'd gotten back from a scouting trip. “I'm sure your friends are getting an earful from their parents,” said Daelin, “but for me, it's simple. I'm not convinced it actually does anything about crime, and I don't like how people look when they come to see hangings.”

“How do they look?”

“Happy,” he said shortly.

Execution is typically via hanging for reasons of convenience and thrift. The naval state has ropes in abundant supply, and they're easily reusable. Fate's End remains for the worst of the worst, though she can't remember when someone was last sent there, and isn't totally certain that it's not an old wives' tale.

She wonders if Katherine will come for her daughter's death.

 

* * *

 

She's so cold and so hungry and she wants her mother and she wants to go home, but can't. She doesn't have either. Boralus wants her dead. Dalaran will never take her back. The old city of Lordaeron is a blighted horror. Her very presence in Stormwind would be the admission of another unforgivable failure. And Theramore … she's decided against doing it when all of a sudden she does.

Before she even realizes it, she's out – through the unmaintained ward in the blink of an eye, and into what used to be her city. It's late in the day, but even the fading fall light is too much for her at first, and she has to close her eyes and then blink until she adjusts. The wind off the ocean is so rich and full she could drink it, and it's a beautiful evening. She used to sit in her parlor on nights like this with the windows open, reading and watching the ocean, listening to happy people outside and the ringing of the harbor bells. Ships arrived all day and night, bringing soldiers and merchants and adventurers, many of them eager to see Kalimdor for the first time, and some of them just coming home.

This will never be anyone's home again. Streaks of raw mana arc through the sky, and though the effect has faded, the arcane still saturates everything here, the ruins and the dead. Fragments of walls and houses twist in unnatural positions beyond all reach of reason or science. They couldn't even bury most of the victims. She commissioned a memorial carved with the names of everyone she knew to be in the city when the bomb fell, and it still feels like a useless apology to all the people whose lives ended that day.

She stands on the dock, wind whipping around her. She used to come back routinely, sometimes just to check on things (“On what?” she wonders), but mostly just to sit and keep company with the ghosts. Somehow it felt right; they could never truly leave this place, and neither could she. More than anything, she wants to tell them how sorry she is, how she led so many of them across the ocean just to die, how she could have done any of a thousand things differently to ensure they'd be safe and happy now. But she can't.

Her life's work amounts to a city of ruins, peopled only by the dead, and picked over by vultures and thieves. None of it came to anything in the end.

She can't be sure how long she's been there, but it's long enough that it's beginning to get dark. On a sudden impulse, she walks into the ocean and immerses herself. It's still early enough in the season, and Theramore far enough south, that she feels warm all over for the first time in ages. She walks back onto the beach and dries herself with a flick of her hand as the tide recedes in the background.

The teleport back to the pit is one of the hardest things she's ever done, and as she lands on the flagstones, her mana reserves ebb. She won't be able to do it again. That's it. It's over.

 

* * *

 

The air in the cell is different. They know she was gone.

Fine. She's ready to die.

 

* * *

 

There are voices down the corridor that evening. She strains to hear but can't make out the words. There's a woman, shrill and angry. Ashvane? She's not sure. A man, high-pitched, reluctant, wheedling. Another man, who doesn't speak much, interjects only occasionally in short, gruff sentences.

 

* * *

 

She's not given anything for supper, and knows what it means.

 

* * *

 

Uther was talking to the men again, his bulk moving in and out of the last light from the setting sun. It had been a terrible day and they were afraid and he was reassuring them. He told them of the Light's descent upon the sick and the dying and that no one was ever truly alone in their suffering. He told them of the immortality of the soul, and that no magic, however foul, could ever take it away from them. They may have been forced to destroy the shells of good people that day, but there was a mercy in it and it freed the victims of a terrible fate that the Light desired for no one.

There are times when Jaina feels vaguely embarrassed by this, such heartfelt and absolute faith coming from a grown man, but not tonight. She's wrapped in her bedroll, shaking, trying to keep the fresh memories at bay. Arthas is staring at something in the distance, pensive, not listening. He's heard it all before.

She shifts in her sleep and then she's in Dalaran years later in her favorite pub, showing an interested tauren how to play chess. There's a fat man moving among the tables there, a visiting preacher, trying to raise money to rebuild a church in Valgarde. Dalaran doesn't get too many of these types, so he has the pub's full attention and knows it. He puffs expansively, imploring the good people of the city to consider the spiritual unity of the world and the Light that connects them all. The draenei and most humans give gladly; the dwarves and the elves, less so. The trolls look skeptical. The gnomes ask if building permits have been filed yet. The goblins want to know if donations are tax-deductible. The man's unsure, but rallies and asks them to think of the kirkyard, and of the graves that will go uncared for without their generosity.

“The Light has their souls,” he says, raising his arms to the audience. “But to us falls the duty of keeping their memories and legacies! Think, brothers and sisters, of our responsibilities to the fallen! Who among the nations does not see to the honorable dead?”

She's reaching into her own pocket when she catches a glimpse of a Forsaken mage nursing a beer at a nearby table. The woman is one of the more badly-decayed that Jainas's seen and her robes are in tatters. There's a terrible gash in her neck, too broad and deep to be a knife but not clean enough for a sword. She's smirking, which is an accomplishment for someone whose lips have mostly rotted away, and stands when the preacher gets close. He falters when he sees her.

“I'm happy to donate,” says the woman. Her voice has that hoarse, eerie quality that all Forsaken seem to have. “But as someone uniquely qualified to comment, don't expect anything other than the dark and the worms when you die. That way, you won't be disappointed if the Light doesn't show up.” She flips the preacher a coin.

The pub is silent. The Forsaken drains a beer she can't possibly taste, catches Jaina's eye, and laughs.

 

* * *

 

The slot opens in the morning and the tray is pushed in. There's no bread, just tea, and for the first time it's steaming hot. She wraps both hands around the cup, feeling the heat soak into her, cherishing that one small pleasure before whatever comes next. She takes a sip and it's so thick with honey that whatever it's hiding must be considerable. As Jaina considers this, she realizes there's been no sound of the guard walking away, and she peeks. Tar Stain is still there waiting.

Well. Whatever happens, she'll deserve it.

She finishes the whole cup and both her mind and time start to slip almost immediately. Van Howzen was right and hearing is the last thing to go; she doesn't know how long it takes, but she registers the door opening and the sound of footsteps, the clinking of chains, that wheedling male voice and the shrill female one.

A boot digs into her back. “She's out. I want this done quickly.”

“You're sure she's not going to wake up on the way?”

“She's had enough for a bloody draft horse, Sweete, and Tompkins is such an idiot she might not wake up at all.”

“If that's the case, I'm not going to accept responsibility if she --”

The woman's voice turns oily, smiling. “You know what you signed.”

The darkness closes in.

She wonders if it'll hurt, or if she'll be unconscious the whole time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey to Fate's End, the discovery of Jaina's arcane abilities as a child, and getting into trouble with Derek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was interested in exploring one of the most telling bits in Blizzard's "Reunion" comic -- namely, that Katherine had to convince Daelin to let Jaina go to Dalaran for training. It's implied that that discussion was going on for a while before Daelin finally backed down. 
> 
> To the best of my knowledge, Blizzard's never said anything about Derek or Tandred's dates of birth, so I've had to guess. Jaina is confirmed to be 36 during Battle for Azeroth, which puts her around 8-9 when Derek was captaining a ship in the Second War. This chapter was written under the assumption that he's ~15-16 years older than her and that he died around his mid-twenties. His Forsaken model looks reasonably close to this, so I hope it's accurate. Tandred looks to be within spitting distance of Jaina's age, so I'm guessing he's around 2-3 years younger than her. (Also left unaddressed by Blizzard is why there was such a massive age gap between the first and second Proudmoore children.)
> 
> And yes, Khadgar is from Kul Tiras.

She registers the sound of trickling water at first, and then the world begins to return in pieces. One sense after another flickers to life.

The ground underneath her is soft and slimy, but no, it's not ground. She feels texture, whorls and grains. Wood? Whatever it is, it's moving. She shifts, realizes her hands and feet are chained, and then there's pain. Her cheek is wet and so are her clothes. Has she been crying? She doesn't think so. Blood then? Not blood.

Where is she? The darkness is total.

She's able to push herself up for a moment, and then the world drops out from under her and she falls. She's shaking as the water runs around her, and it's wrong, too oily, like the tea. She remembers the tea.

Everything heaves again and she wonders if she's already dead and this is simply the form of torment chosen for her. She's listened to priests and paladins and druids talk endlessly about what happens after death, but ever since that Forsaken mage in the pub, she's never been sure that any of them were right. To be held prisoner without knowing where she was, or being able to understand what was happening, wasn't something she'd anticipated. However, she could see how a god would consider that a fitting punishment for someone who was an academic at heart.

Is there anyone else in this hell? Is Arthas here? Her father? Derek? But then she thinks: No, not Derek. Derek was good. She wasn't sure if she was good. She had tried, but there were too many mistakes, too many decisions where she wasn't permitted to be good. Did that matter? She should have asked. Arthas was trying to be good, she thinks, at least to a certain point, so maybe it doesn't matter at all.

Her mind oils itself and ticks over and she focuses. Scent returns, and with it the unmistakable reek of bilgewater. If it's bilgewater she's sitting in, that means a ship, and a ship means bulkheads and something she can lean against.

She stretches blindly in the darkness, finding nothing. Movement is clumsy, chains dragging along the floor, but finally she encounters something solid with her left foot, and pushes herself against it. The ship – yes, it's a ship – continues to pitch up and down. She braces her feet against the deck, finally finds a wall, and nests into it, doing her best to stay out of the bilge. Her mind has finally caught up with the rest of her and she is Jaina Proudmoore and she is alive and she is in a ship's hold, and she knows absolutely that it is not a Kul Tiran ship.

There are many things in the world that she's grown uncertain about in adulthood; however, the one she's not prepared to question is whether any Kul Tiran vessel would be permitted to exist in this state of decay. The bilge is unspeakably foul, and the deck hasn't been cleaned in months, if ever. Something tiny moves next to her and she flinches. A slug? (She hopes.) The soft, slimy wood around her is not the magically-augmented wood she remembers, impervious to decay and barnacles. And as the ship pitches forward again, it's obvious there's no tidesage at the helm, no one calming the ocean's fury or finding a path around it.

No, this is not a Kul Tiran ship.

 

* * *

 

She had seen the great shipyards of Stormsong Valley frequently as a child. Her parents checked on progress in the repair bays and the commissioning of new ships often, and they were sufficiently busy that this usually meant having to portal in and out of Boralus.

This rankled Daelin, who maintained that the only proper way for the Lord Admiral to travel was on the deck of a warship, and preferably the biggest one in the fleet, but he'd been forced to concede to practicality as his duties multiplied. News had reached the island of attacks on Stormwind's outlying territories by strange, green-skinned monsters, and the ruling houses of Kul Tiras had voted unanimously to expand the navy.

Donnach O'Malley, the mage assigned to the Lord Admiral's transportation needs, had always waited patiently while the Proudmoores fussed around getting ready. Portals were a quick affair when Daelin and Katherine were on their own, but as the family had grown, so had the attendant chaos. Derek had been groomed for the Admiralship from an early age, was used to the visits, and had more or less acquiesced to the demand for punctuality. The later addition of Jaina and Tandred had sorely tested the household's organization. A dinner the Lord Admiral was hosting that night for the merchants' association hadn't helped matters. A busy Katherine had extracted a promise from her daughter to cooperate while bathing and dressing in return for being permitted to watch O'Malley conjure the portal, which she loved.

O'Malley had borrowed a copy of _The Wolf and the Lighthouse_ from the keep's library and was settled in an overstuffed chair in the foyer, having resigned himself to a lengthy wait. The peace was broken by the clatter of feet on the stairs, and he looked up at the Proudmoore girl in her little blue sailor's dress.

“Master O'Malley? Are you going to make the portal now?”

He lowered the book. “Are you all ready to go?”

“No. My dad's getting Tandred ready and Mummy went to the kitchen to talk to Cook.”

O'Malley closed his eyes. “Another half-hour, then.”

“I can go to Stormsong now if you want. I'm ready.”

He smiled. “No, Miss Jaina, I don't think your parents would like that.”

“Can you make the portal now so I can watch anyway?”

“I could, but then I'd have to keep it open until everyone was ready to go, and I think that might take a long time.”

Jaina considered this. “Does it hurt to keep portals open?”

“No, but I'm tired, and it does take energy.” O'Malley was only in his late fifties, which was certainly not old for a mage, but he did not spend energy without having a reason to do so.

“We could teleport. I haven't done that yet.”

“Teleporting takes more energy than portals.”

“Why?”

He didn't think a five-year old would be interested in the theory involved, and decided to simplify matters. “Well, with a portal you're opening a path through an area with a lot of magic in it, and then people walk the path on their own. If you're teleporting yourself or someone else, you have to use your own connection to the Twisting Nether – the place with the magic – and then move them with you. You know how it's easy to open a door for someone?” She nodded. “Well, portals are like holding a door open for someone. Teleportation is like opening a door and then picking someone up and carrying them through it. It's easy for a mage to teleport himself, but a lot harder to teleport other people.”

“How many people can you teleport?”

“Just me and another person. Some mages in Dalaran can teleport themselves and a few other people at the same time – I think three or four – but it's very rare.”

“Is Dalaran the magic city?”

He smiled, and extended his hand. An arcane model of Dalaran suddenly popped into his palm, the famous spires climbing the air. He enjoyed this particular party trick and it never failed him; the little girl was rapt. “Yes, Dalaran is the magic city.”

Jaina reached out hesitantly to touch the Violet Citadel, and O'Malley waited for the inevitable; any contact would cause the model to dissipate. Instead, a purple flash arced from her finger and the model flared briefly. His eyes narrowed and he abruptly closed his hand. Jaina stepped back, startled, and he looked at her, and could swore he saw –

A harassed-looking Katherine appeared at the top of the stairs with a pile of coats in her arms. “Master O'Malley? I'm so sorry about the wait. Oh, please don't get up,” she said, as the mage rose creakily. “We should be ready to go soon.”

“It's no problem, Lady Proudmoore. I know this is a busy day for you.” He gestured to Jaina as Katherine descended. “I've just been giving a lesson on arcane theory to your daughter.”

“I haven't tried that for keeping her busy, but it seems to have worked. Here, Jaina.” She set the coats down with a sigh. “You'll have to find yours in this.”

The mage glanced sidelong at Katherine as Jaina began to excavate for her blue peacoat. “Might have a little spellcaster on your hands there, milady.”

“Won't Daelin will be thrilled,” Katherine said dryly. “I can't remember if any Proudmoore had the Gift.”

“Any tidesages?”

“I'd have to look. There have been a few on my side of the family, though I think the most recent was my great-grandmother.”

“It's been known to skip generations, so it's possible.”

Katherine frowned. “I didn't think it was the same thing, though? Tidesages and conjurors?”

The island nation's reverence for its tidesages did not quite extend to its few mages, and Daelin's ambivalence on arcane magic was common. It was considered useful at times but often frivolous, and less respectable than good hard work. By contrast, what tidesages did was almost entirely practical, and they were among the most formidable elements of an already-prestigious navy. The Proudmoores having a tidesage for a daughter would be met with widespread approval, and even a sense that all was right with the world. A mage – or conjuror, as the Tirasi often referred to them somewhat derisively – was a different matter. Khadgar's growing fame abroad was a point of pride and had helped to change attitudes, but not fast enough for O'Malley, who stiffened. “Tidesages use a lot of elemental magic, but most have some affinity for the arcane as well, even if they don't want to admit it. Dalaran considers water and frost magic to be a preference, and not a completely separate discipline.”

“I'm sorry,” Katherine said. “I didn't mean to offend.”

“Not at all, milady.”

“Just … oh dear.” She looked down at Jaina, who was now struggling into her peacoat. “I didn't expect this. Her governess never said anything.”

“Some children start showing the Gift around her age, but it's often subtle. I mean, I'm not sure even now, I just … I think it's possible.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Oh, I shouldn't think so. Not now, anyway. It can be later, if you don't – ” He looked at Katherine's stricken face and stopped. He said carefully, “I can send a letter to Dalaran asking about trialing her, if you'd like.”

Katherine picked her daughter up. “I think it's a bit early for that.”

“Yes, milady.”  
  
“I'm not saying never.”

“Of course, milady.”

“Did I do something wrong, Mummy?” Jaina asked. She hadn't quite understood the conversation, only that she was the subject of it, and that her mother was upset.

“No, darling, you didn't.” Katherine hugged her daughter close.

They stood in awkward silence for a few moments, and then Katherine sighed. “I'll have to deal with this later. I'm so sorry, but I have to go find out what's keeping the boys. We're supposed to meet with the head of the supercargo union today and I don't want to keep her waiting. Would you mind watching Jaina for another minute?”

“Not at all.”

“Thank you. Jaina, be good.” Katherine lowered her daughter and went back up the stairs. Jaina looked after her, fidgeting, wanting to leave, but worried she would miss the portal if she did.

O'Malley studied her. He didn't see much of the Proudmoore children outside of the family's portaling needs. Derek was a gawky but serious young man whose growth spurts had been a constant headache for the family tailor. Nevertheless, he was a clever boy and his frame held the promise of strength. Everyone thought he would be a steady Lord Admiral when the time came. He was perhaps less prone to Daelin's fits of brilliance in battle, but less likely to get the fleet into the situations that needed them.

Jaina and Tandred had come along much later. The latter was still a toddler and of little interest to O'Malley as yet, but Jaina had always been precocious. Perhaps too much so; he had not been fully honest with Katherine. Showing any ability with the arcane at the age of five was exceptionally rare.

He glanced at the stairs and finally came to a decision. Pulling the chair over, he sat and leaned forward.

“Miss Jaina, would you like to play a game?”

“Yes. I'm good at games.” She had won at checkers that morning versus Derek, not realizing that her brother's swift concession happened to coincide with the arrival of breakfast.

“I rather think you are,” he said. “When you're writing the alphabet in lessons, which hand do you write with? Right or left?”

“Right.”

He grasped her right hand gently and brought it forward, palm upward, and released her. “Good. Just keep your hand out like this.” He extended his own right hand. “See? Yes, exactly. Just keep it like that.”

He made a fist and then opened it. Arcane vapor erupted and quickly coalesced into a neat sphere on his palm. He bounced it like a rubber ball as she watched, fascinated. Tiny runes appeared and disappeared almost instantly on the orb, and she could see a thousand colors shimmer across it just as quickly. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She looked up at him hopefully. “Can I hold it?”

“We'll see, young lady. Keep your palm open.” He tipped his hand forward. The little purple orb flowed like water onto her chubby hand, and she giggled as it reached her, rolling it around her palm in a neat circle. As with the arcane model, the orb didn't disappear. O'Malley was satisfied – this would certainly get her a session with Dalaran's master of students for potential admission – but he was a curious man by nature, and decided to see how far he could push things.

“Can I do it with both hands?” she asked. He nodded, and she cupped the ball between them, delighted, spinning it faster, and then trying to bounce it as O'Malley had. It was a creditable effort. “Now what do I do for the game?”

“Stand still – yes, you can keep the ball. Just let it settle in your hands right there.” She complied, allowing the orb to come to a rest. “Now focus on it. Just look at it and concentrate. Keep breathing normally. Focus on the ball. Can you get it to move at all, without moving your hands?”

“I don't think so.”

“I think you can, Jaina.”

She studied it closely, her face scrunched up, with no discernible movement to the orb as the minutes passed. He knew this was ridiculous. She was five years old and he didn't think he could really explain what she needed to do in a way she could understand. She was trying too hard, she needed to empty her mind of all conscious effort to do it, and –

The ball rose in the air shakily, never wobbling more than an inch or two over her hands, but it was enough. No, he thought. It was more than enough. Jaina beamed up at him, and there it was again. He _had_ seen it – the little flash in her eyes, the telltale glow of arcane energy being channeled through the body's meridians. He leaned back, feeling his age for a moment, the knowledge of being an older mage present at the birth of a new one. And a female mage, too; the gap had closed somewhat in his time, but they were still comparatively rare.

There was a weight to it he had not expected. He knew she could get the best possible training, that a scion of the ruling house of Kul Tiras would never be overlooked or ignored in Dalaran, but there was the minor matter of convincing her parents to send her in the first place. Given the Tirasi attitude to magic, it would be politically sensitive to send Jaina to Dalaran rather than keeping her home to be trained as a tidesage. But O'Malley didn't think she would ever reach her potential without leaving. That argument might be enough to convince Katherine, he thought, but he wasn't sure Daelin would ever see it as anything other than an insult. If Kul Tiras wasn't good enough for his daughter, what had his life's work amounted to?

“O'Malley?” Daelin appeared at the top of the stairs, followed by Derek and Katherine, who was carrying Tandred, now mercifully asleep. “I'm sorry about the wait. We're ready to go.”

“Not a problem, milord,” said O'Malley, rising from the chair. Katherine caught his eye and shook her head slightly. No, he agreed, this was a conversation he was more than happy to delay for the moment, but they weren't given the option. Jaina was happily bouncing the little ball again and dropped it.

Daelin was trying to buckle his sword on with minimal success while jogging down the stairs. “What have you got there, Jaina?”

“Master O'Malley's ball,” she answered, crawling under the hassock to retrieve it. “Mummy, Derek, see what I can do?” She held it out for her family to see. Incredibly enough, she'd managed to levitate it again slightly, and O'Malley cringed. No, he thought, he could never let the Monastery get its hands on her, ever. Derek, taller than his father, peered over his shoulder.

Daelin looked from the ball to Jaina, and then to the older mage standing stiffly at attention. “O'Malley, what's going on?”

“Milord, I'm sorry. I should have asked you first, but I had to know.”

“Had to know what?” Daelin's mood hadn't been improved by having to wrestle a squalling Tandred into a bath that morning.

O'Malley wished he'd had more time, any time, to think about how he was going to say this. “Well … I was talking to Lady Proudmoore earlier, and – ”

Katherine broke in. “Master O'Malley, it's all right. We can worry about it later.”

Daelin turned to his wife. “Worry about what?”

Katherine looked at O'Malley and arched an eyebrow. He said reluctantly, “I think Jaina has the Gift.”

Daelin's face cleared. “Another tidesage in the family? That's a fine thing. Why would you ever be worried about that?” He chuckled. “My goodness, the two of you are so worked up over it. Derek can lead the fleet and Jaina can guide it. It's perfect. D'you see that, Derek? How would you like to have your little sister on your crew? Two Proudmoores on one ship will be unstoppable.” He clapped his oldest son on the back.

This wasn't going to end well. “To be honest, milord, I think her talents might be better suited to the arcane. I think she would be an extraordinary candidate for the academy in Dalaran.”

Daelin's smile faded. “You don't think she should be a tidesage?”

“I think she'd be an excellent one.”

“Then what's the problem?” Daelin's voice was tight. Jaina looked at her parents, suddenly uncertain, and the sphere vanished. Tandred had woken at the sound of raised voices and was squirming in his mother's arms.

“I think … I think she's a very, very smart little girl and that she could be much more than just a tidesage.” O'Malley knew instantly that he'd said the wrong thing, but couldn't think of any other way to put it. One way or another, some version of it would have been said eventually.

“Fine,” said Daelin. “I'll be sure to consult the mages of Dalaran for their _exalted_ opinion on that subject, but in the meantime, I need to get Stormsong.”

“Of course.” O'Malley stepped back, feeling defeated. “I just need a little space, please.”

Jaina pressed forward, wanting to see the portal go up, and Daelin yanked her back more roughly than intended. “Stay with your mother, Jaina.”

“But she promised I could watch the portal.”

“You're going through it anyway,” he snapped. “What does it matter?”

“Dad,” Derek said quietly. “She didn't mean anything by it. She just likes to see it.”

“I imagine she does, but she could do with a little discipline.”

“Daelin,” Katherine said sharply, “She's _five_.” Her husband fell silent.

O'Malley, heartily wishing he were anywhere other than the foyer of Proudmoore Keep at that moment, was close to being finished. Truthfully, he liked Daelin, and didn't want to leave things on a bad note. “Milord, I'm very sorry. It wasn't my intent to offend or insult you.”

“I'm not. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry too.” Daelin exhaled. “There have been too many damned nuisances today and it's barely even started.”

O'Malley could have left things there, but his conscience wouldn't permit it, and he decided to try appealing to parental pride. “It's just … I think your daughter is profoundly gifted, and I wouldn't abandon the possibility of sending her to Dalaran.”

There was an edge to Daelin's voice. “Katherine and I will decide that when the time comes, thank you.”

“It's coming quickly.”

“I'm aware. The Monastery starts training children around eight or nine.”

“Milord, you'll be doing her a disservice if you don't get her the best possible training.”

“And she can't get it here?”

Sometimes, O'Malley thought, you just had to tell the damned truth. “If she's a mage, then frankly, no. And I wouldn't leave this until she's eight or nine – I'd get her trialed as soon as possible. Untrained mages are dangerous.” He allowed the flow of arcane energy to crest, and then snapped the portal to the shipyards open with a little more force than necessary.

“We'll discuss this later,” Daelin said. “I have work to do. You'll be ready to portal us home this afternoon?”

“Of course.”

The Lord Admiral stepped through the portal, followed by the rest of the family. O'Malley watched them go, knowing things had spiraled out of control and wanting to kick himself for not being able to engineer a better outcome.

Through the shimmering path to the shipyards, he saw Derek swing Jaina onto his shoulders, the frame of a _Resolute_ -class destroyer looming over them.

 

* * *

 

Jaina would remember the incident only vaguely, and mostly because it was the beginning of a series of fights her parents had, the subject of which was always kept from her. The arcane orb and her first experience with levitation she didn't remember at all. O'Malley, too, disappeared into the haze of childhood as the name and face of a person who had always been very kind to her. Her father dismissed him from service not long after.

That particular day was more memorable for the world of trouble she and Derek got into that evening. After the Proudmoores had met with the head of the supercargo union, they'd gone to visit a slip with a brand-new frigate. It was due to be christened in a week's time, and the builders had invited Jaina to be the person to break a bottle of champagne on the stern. Her parents demurred, not wanting a five-year old to be running around with a broken bottle, no matter how much she'd begged. Her father was unusually brusque with her about it, and she didn't understand why.

Derek excused himself from the merchants' association dinner early that night, having volunteered to put Jaina to bed. Instead of going upstairs to the family quarters, they'd gone to the kitchen. Their mother found them later that evening practicing with empty bottles of the wine Dawson had served with the meal. Jaina had smashed a considerable number of them against an oak table in the buttery, and once Derek was satisfied with her technique, he'd given her a full bottle. He'd made his selection on the basis of its being unlabeled and very dusty. Unfortunately for them, it turned out to be a 57-year old port their parents had been saving for a special occasion.

Jaina went without dessert for a month. Derek was pulled out of navigation exercises and spent the next week cleaning the Keep from top to bottom. Including, their mother said grimly, dusting all of the bottles in the buttery.

When she finished lessons, Jaina crept down to the cellars to visit him as he mopped the floor. "I'm sorry, Derek," she said, hugging him.

He smiled down at her. "Worth it."

 

* * *

 

Muffled voices above.

She must have fallen asleep. The pitching has stopped; she feels the ship riding at anchor. Jaina presses her cheek against the bulkhead and closes her eyes, feeling the gentle swell. That chorus to the old shanty – _And the rocking of the boat / Is the Tirasi lullaby_. She can't remember the rest of it. They're riding high so she doesn't think they're hauling much cargo. Or maybe _she_ is the only cargo.

She's considering this when she hears the sound of someone opening a hatch far above, and the voices get a little clearer.

“We're not going another bloomin' length here. I ain't droppin' anchor off that island, not for love or money.”

“You can't get there anyway,” another voice says dourly. “You need a tidesage to get there.”

“Well, how long do we have to wait?”

“Boss said they'd find us, then we pack 'em up in the jolly boat and send 'em off.”

“How'm I s'posed to get her in, eh? Just ask nicely, then?” No prizes for guessing who they were talking about, Jaina thought.

Another person. “Won't be an issue. She's out cold.”

“Fine, then, you be the one to do it.”

“You're a bloody coward, Kipp, is what you are.”

“I'm a coward wot's lived and I ain't tanglin' with no mage.”

The third voice scoffs. “She's tied up and half-dead anyway. Gettin' yourself in a tizzy for nothing.”

“Half-dead is half-alive. Not for me, thanks.”

There's a heavy thud on the deck above her – rope, maybe – and the sound of the hatch. The voices fade. Jaina closes her eyes again.

She does not know how long she sleeps, or if she does, before she hears the sound of heavy boots on the deck directly above her, and the rasp of a metal grate as it opens.

Time to go.


End file.
